CONAKRY, Jan 31 A surge in cocaine trafficking
has transformed Guinea into West Africa's latest drug hot spot,
jeopardizing President Alpha Conde's efforts to rebuild state
institutions after a military coup and attract billion of
dollars in mining investment.

Locals and Latin Americans long-accused of smuggling are
operating freely in the country, some with high-level protection
from within Conde's administration, according to Guinean and
international law enforcement officials and internal police
reports seen by Reuters.

The growth of trafficking was overlooked as diplomats
focused on securing a fragile transition back to civilian rule
after the 2008 putsch.

Counter-narcotics agents from the United States and other
countries, meanwhile, concentrated on smugglers in neighbouring
Guinea-Bissau, a tiny former Portuguese colony dubbed by crime
experts Africa's first "narco-state".

However, the U.S. State Department's 2013 International
Narcotics Control Strategy Report said seizures in Guinea and
cases abroad traced back there show a spike in trafficking since
Conde won power at a 2010 election.

A lack of government figures makes estimating volumes
tricky, but a foreign security source said one or two planes
landed each month last year, ferrying in cocaine from Latin
America mostly for smuggling to Europe.

"Whatever the attitude of the head of state, it's clear that
traffickers can operate in Guinea. They have deep roots there,"
said Stephen Ellis, researcher at the African Studies Centre,
Leiden, in the Netherlands.

Ellis said drug money was having a corrosive effect on
attempts by Conde's government to improve governance: "It's
worrying because of the effects not just on the politics of
Guinea, but the whole region."

A July report by Guinea's top anti-drugs agency, seen by
Reuters, said traffickers were operating with protection of
senior civilian, military and police officials. It said proceeds
from the trade are laundered through various channels, including
real estate, fishing companies and local mining operations.

HIGHWAY 10

Guinea and Guinea-Bissau are at the eastern end of "Highway
10", the nickname given by law enforcement officers for the 10th
parallel north of the equator, the shortest route across the
Atlantic, used by traffickers over the past decade to smuggle
Latin American cocaine destined mainly for Europe.

United Nations experts estimated last year that some 20
tonnes of cocaine, mostly from Colombia and Venezuela, pass each
year through West Africa, which became an attractive transit
point as U.S. and European authorities cracked down on more
direct routes.

Guinea's role has surged since last year, when an April U.S.
sting operation targeted Guinea-Bissau's military chief,
prompting traffickers to seek sanctuary in Conakry, law
enforcement officials said.

The shift of the trade to Guinea raises the stakes. While
Guinea-Bissau is an unstable backwater of just 1.6 million
people that rarely attracts notice outside a small community of
West Africa watchers, Guinea has nearly 8 times as many people
and a much larger regional role.

With vast reserves of iron ore, it has also secured billions
of dollars in pledges for investment from mining firms including
Rio Tinto and Brazil's Vale. A
breakdown of law and order associated with the drugs trade could
have an impact on that investment.

In the mouldy, potholed seaside capital, expensive
restaurants, gleaming hotels and new apartment blocks highlight
pockets of wealth. But they soon give way to teeming,
rubbish-strewn neighbourhoods away from the centre of town.

"People are frightened to take the lid off Guinea," said one
foreign official, who, like others interviewed for the story,
declined to be identified. "Authorities know traffickers are
there but are powerless to do anything. They need international
help."

Part of the problem is that Col. Moussa Tiegboro Camara,
Guinea's top anti-narcotics officer, has been accused of
involvement in a massacre of protesters under the military junta
in 2009, making it impossible for Western nations to cooperate
with him.

He did not respond to a request for comment, nor did
officials in Conde's office.

Government spokesman Damantang Camara denied that
trafficking was rising or that the state was complicit: "There
will be no compromise with drug traffickers." (Camara is a
common surname in Guinea and several people in this report who
share the name are not related.)

Those meant to keep order lack the resources to do so.

A Guinean anti-narcotics officer said his men are unarmed,
need money for fuel and are forced to buy second-hand laptops.
The 230 anti-drug agents are too few to police the air strips,
coastal landing points or chaotic main port, making the country
a smuggler's paradise.

Local and international officials with access to
intelligence reports say cocaine is increasingly landing by sea
at unmonitored ports or flown in by small planes using remote
air strips. Shipments then often receive military escort.

In July, Guinean anti-drugs agents were tipped off about a
boat landing carrying cocaine and tried to scramble officers to
the scene near Boffa, 80 km (50 miles) north of Conakry.

They didn't get very far. Before they left the capital, they
were ordered off the case by other security forces. Their men
later found a boat stained with dried blood and stripped of
identification and communications equipment.

"We were shut out by the Navy and the Gendarmerie ... They
were hostile to our presence on the ground," said a Guinean
anti-narcotics officer with detailed knowledge of the case.
"There has been a total blackout on the incident."

"THE UNTOUCHABLES"

Drug trafficking in Guinea flourished in the years leading
up to veteran president Lansana Conte's death in 2008. Political
and military elites, including the late president's eldest son
Ousmane Conte, secured the trade, according to Guinean legal
documents and foreign law enforcement officials.

Dadis Camara, the army captain who seized power in the chaos
after the end of Conte's 24-year rule, hauled senior civilian
and military figures before him to confess their roles in drug
trafficking. The inquisitions - known as the Dadis Show - became
popular TV viewing and were used to neutralise rivals.

In a signed police transcript, Ousmane Conte admitted in
February 2009 to taking $300,000 from an alleged drug trafficker
who used the late president's son's name to secure clearance for
planes ladened with cocaine.

In 2010, Washington nominated Ousmane Conte a drug kingpin.
But, like others accused of trafficking, the son of the late
president was soon free again.

He has said on national television: "I confess that I have
participated in the trafficking of drugs, but I am not a
godfather." Reuters was not able to reach him for comment.

He is now sidelined. But the Guinean anti-drugs officer said
the network, dubbed "The Untouchables", is back in action: "We
fear they've taken the president hostage. If we don't get
international support, we'll never be able to tackle them."

Dadis Camara, the junta leader who took over after Lansana
Conte's death, fled Guinea after an assassination attempt in
December 2009. Elections were held the following year, bringing
to power Conde, a longstanding figure in the opposition.

Conde took office after years in exile abroad. This has left
him vulnerable and reliant on figures who know the system,
according to a diplomat who follows Guinean politics.

"He doesn't know who to trust ... Once they realised that he
barked but did not bite, the networks reformed," the diplomat
said.

But the July memo by Guinea's top anti-drugs unit, which
reports directly to the president, said traffickers had
"tactically withdrawn" back to Guinea after last year's U.S.
sting operation in the smaller country, which missed its target,
Guinea-Bissau army chief General Antonio Injai.

"They had never gone very far. For a number of years, they
have been in touch with Guinea's cocaine networks," the memo
said.

IN PLAIN VIEW

In 2010, according to Guinean Supreme Court documents
reviewed by Reuters, the court seized two dozen buildings owned
by suspected traffickers. But legal cases subsequently fell
through and the buildings were returned. They now swell the
property portfolios of people accused by police of trafficking.

One, a half-finished, sky-blue building with a dry-cleaner
downstairs, has risen up just down the road from the drug unit's
headquarters, according to the local anti-narcotics officer.

Government spokesman Camara said cases against traffickers
during military rule had not been properly put together.

"Their lawyers had no problem in taking them apart," he
said. "Not all those traffickers were neutralised. That doesn't
mean they are operating again. I don't believe that."

According to a second international law enforcement officer,
several known foreign traffickers, many of them targeted in the
2008-9 crackdown, live in Conakry. They come from countries
including Colombia, Nigeria, Greece, Brazil and Suriname.

At a conference in Abu Dhabi in November, Conde touted the
country as "open for business" in a bid to woo Gulf investors.
He won billions of dollars in mining investment.

Yet Conde faces a tough battle for re-election in 2015. He
must also accomplish the delicate task of keeping in check the
armed forces, implicated in trafficking.

"We are dealing with a government that lacks the most basic
forms of governance ... If you are a narco, the conditions you
would want are all here," said a second Western diplomat.

The U.S. State Department report said officials tackling
trafficking had been threatened due to their work. A State
Department spokesman, however, said there appeared to be no
significant threats to Guinea's stability from trafficking.

However, the July 2013 memo from Guinea's anti-drug unit
challenged this, calling on Guinea's highest authorities to
"neutralise" traffickers operating in complicity with officials.

Dec 9 Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox
Inc has made a $14.1 billion bid for the remaining
shares of European pay-TV group Sky Plc that the U.S.
company does not already own, the British broadcaster said on
Friday.

Reuters is the news and media division of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Learn more about Thomson Reuters products: